WORDS.

The situation is Russia is difficult to get a read on and the position of the United States in that situation is difficult as well to understand. Russia is now Russia and not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as it was for 90% of my lifetime. Russia is now led by a man in Vladimir Putin who seems to harken back to those years when the country was named the USSR as the country’s finest hours. Mr. Putin seems to be approaching things by the set of rules that were in place when his country was named the USSR while the rest of the world and the western world in particular has not been able to get a grip on what the USSR had become after it fell into disrepair and is now even more floundering in catching up with how Russia and Mr. Putin now sees herself. Ukraine and Crimea are caught in the middle of all this and Ukraine in particular has found itself standing in front of Russia’s bulldozer blade. I am not clear on what the United States’ interest is in this situation so I am not settled on if we should move more actively into the fray or step even farther away from it, but I am certain that Russia is moving forward with things while the rest of the world, the West and the United States are still trying to locate the rule book.

I think it's more that Putin sees himself as the tsar of a new Russian empire, called Eurasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Union
As long as he and Dmitri Medvedev keep nominally trading roles as Prime Minister and President, he's effectively in control for life.

The thing that is virtually unreported in the West, is that Ukraine's right-wing is largely controlled by a neo-Nazi thugs who have been having increased popularity and strength since the Euromaidan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party). https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=svoboda&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&gws_rd=ssl&tbm=isch#gbv=2&hl=en&q=svoboda+ukraine&tbm=isch&imgdii=_
I have a close friend who's visited Crimea six times, and has a girlfriend there. The way he sums it up is that there simply are no "good guys" involved. Everything is corrupt beyond belief, like a third-world country.